Leaching Optimization of Sarcheshmeh Copper Concentrate by Application of Taguchi Experimental Design Method

Taguchi Method is used as a statistical approach to optimize the process parameters and improve the quality of components that are produced. The present study aimed to illustrate the leaching optimization of Sarcheshmeh copper concentrate using Taguchi’s experimental design. Various operating parameters such as acid concentration (CA), temperature (T), solid percentage (%S), O2 flow rate (O2), extra oxidizing agent (OxA), NaCl concentration (CNaCl), and contact time (t), each at three levels, were selected and their effect on the copper extraction (R%) was analyzed. L27 Orthogonal Array (OA) was employed as the experimental design and the results were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of mean (ANOM). The experiment results indicated that (T) variable was the most significant parameter with 81% contribution to the response. It is also observed that the interactions between (CA and OxA), (CA and Cox), (CA and CNaCl) had no significant effect on the copper dissolution process. Furthermore, (T), (%S), (O2), (CNaCl) and (t) parameters were found to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level for the desired response. The study showed that Taguchi’s method was suitable to optimize the experiments for increasing leaching efficiency.